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I have my domain at mydomain.ca . When I registered I tried to get mydomain.com as well, but someone else had it. I checked, and it was parked with GoDaddy.

I wrote to the guy who's on the contact info for it, once when I bought the .ca one and once a year ago, asking if he'd like to sell it. Got no reply, so I basically forgot about it. Then yesterday I got an e-mail from him offering to sell or lease it to me, and asking me to make an offer.

Checking with who.is got me the info that it was first registered in 1997, and is still held by the original registrant. I've checked with The Wayback machine as far back as 2000, and it appears there's never been a site on it.

I have never bought a domain other than by being the original registrant - how can I evaluate this so I can give a reasonable offer?

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They wayback machine may not be accurate, they don't always get everything, and if you block their crawler at the robots.txt level ( intentional or accidental ), it won't be put into their db.

As for price, I believe back in 97 domains were $70 a year with very few choices in registrars.

He obviously registered it with intentions of making money so, he probably moved it to godaddy when they first came out with < $10 domains , so if you really want the offer to be taken serious... I'd start at $500 ... obviously he hasn't done an appraisal yet, or he would have come back with an offer.

Expect to spend more than $1000, but a serious offer should at least be more than his cost, even though he may have just sat on the domain for all this time.

But it really all comes down to "how much is it worth to you", I've had clients willing to spend upwards of 10k for a domain name they wanted.

WOW - $1000. That's a little too rich for my blood right now. I can go to $250, but that's my limit. I guess I'm pretty small potatoes. I stil want to make an offer - nothing ventured etc. - should I offer less (like $200) and let him counter-offer? Or should I just be straightforward and explain my situation and tell him $250 is it?

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If you feel that someone's post helped you fix your problem, answered your question, or just made you feel better, feel free to "Like" their post. The "Like" link is at the bottom right of each post, along side the "reply" link. And if you are being helped here, try to help someone else - pass it on!

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be mocking or anything,
but since I've never paid extra for a domain I can't concieve of spending millions on a domain

Yeah, me neither! I could understand a big business feeling that it was OK to spend quite a lot for a domain that reflected their name and/or brand, but I'm just a person, and while I have a marketing budget, it's small.

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